This Weepend
by Hallow Avengence
Summary: "Do you... uh, want me to want you to want me?" In which Tori cries and Jade responds by making pancakes. Jori.
1. Chapter 1

_AN: So I'd suppose this takes places sometime after 'Tori Goes Platinum', and you'll have to forgive me for the... eh, confusing lines? I always thought that if these two were ever going to have an honest conversation which addressed their (completely gay, and obvious) subtext ('sub-sex' hee hee) then it would be confusing and awkward and take a whole lot of deciphering. _

_Also, I'm not entirely sure whether this is a one shot. Probably not, knowing my inability to leave a story be :) _

_Anyhoooo, enjoy! _

* * *

Sometimes when Tori Vega started crying, she couldn't stop.

She didn't know why, there was no rational reason to be choking out sobs, lungs burning. But sometimes she returned home from school and as soon as her bedroom door clicked shut behind her, she broke down. Still standing, bag clutched in one hand, eyes dripping, breathe shuddering with the force of sudden overwhelming sadness.

Those days she remained in her room till morning, finally falling asleep with her cheek atop a wet tear-clammy pillow. By the morning the tears would be dry and her naturally happy mood reasserted.

Tori didn't know whether such behaviour was completely normal or completely insane. But she kept it to herself - after all she stood for eternal optimism, blindingly sunny enthusiasm and positivity.

* * *

It was a Friday evening. Her parents were having a romantic spa trip away (her mother's choice) and Trina was on a _date _(see: stalking the cute guy she spotted in the local Starbucks), so the house was unusually quiet. It hadn't been a great day for Tori – not bad by any means, but tiring. Filled with ventriloquist chat up lines, and nonsensical redheaded rambles, and salads (and _god_, all Tori wanted was a hamburger for lunch! But the female population of Hollywood lived in a gastronomic prison fashioned from lettuce leaves. Got to keep up with the crowd).

So before she'd even got the front door closed, her eyes were swimming. She climbed up to her room and resigned herself to a night of weeping.

An hour later though and the door bell rang. Tori groaned, the noise reverberating round her tender head. She ignored it, and for a couple of minutes there was silence. Convinced whoever it was had gone, she burrowed back inside her bed, and allowed sadness to engulf her once more.

The silence however was clearly a ploy, because the bell rang out again and... didn't stop. Whoever the visitor (lowlife, good-for-nothing tramp, hellion) was, had apparently jammed their finger into the damn device and clearly wasn't going to let go until she answered.

Tori threw herself out of bed swearing and hurtled down the stairs.

In her haste however, sadness momentarily transformed into anger, she'd forgotten about her tear soaked, puffy, red, pillow-crumpled appearance. As she flung open the door, the realisation came flooding back to her. _Fuck_.

Jade (_double fuck_) stood at her door step looking... bemused. She removed her finger from the bell, and blinked.

For a moment everything was still, suspended as they regarded each other from either side of the entrance, eyes locked.

Tori looked away first, pressing one sleeve of the tatty grey sweatshirt she was wearing across her face, "uh, Jade this isn't a good time-"

She was cut off however by the paler girl brushing past her wordlessly and into the house. Tori remained frozen in place for a second, staring outwards and trying to push down the urge to start crying again. She couldn't deal with this right now. "Jade, please..."

There was a crash behind her and Tori whirled round, frantic, convinced she would find Jade attempting (succeeding) to wreck her home as some sort of twisted punishment for having shown weakness. But, to her surprise, the other girl was just rummaging through her cupboards, looking suspiciously... calm.

"Jade?"

The other girl ignored her, suddenly snapping upright and flourishing a frying pan. She dropped the object on the stove and turned her attention to the fridge.

Tori blinked. So that was why she was here? Jade was hungry? Had a sudden insatiable urge to cook and Tori's house was closest to where... wherever Jade went when she wasn't terrorizing Hollywood Arts? The darker girl felt drained suddenly, her head throbbing from all the crying. Tired, so very tired. She didn't have the energy to fight Jade so instead she seated herself on the breakfast bar, rested her head in her arms and tried to summon up any feeling that wasn't apathy.

* * *

She awoke to the clack of crockery against marble and the smell of golden syrup. Groggily she opened an eye and was met with the sight of a neat stack of pancakes topped with strawberries.

There was a scrape of cutlery and she shuffled her body round so she could see Jade, sat across from her at the breakfast bar, eating her own plate of pancakes.

Well... this was surreal. But Tori was not one to say no to food – particularly not good smelling, well presented, sweet breakfast treats. So she picked up her own knife and fork, and dug in.

A couple of moments later, as she speared one of the red berries, something occurred to her. "I didn't think we had strawberries...?"

Jade glanced up at her, face devoid of emotion, eyes full of unreadable thought, "you didn't."

"So where...?"

The other girl sighed, as if Tori was particularly stupid. "I picked some up."

"Oh." The tan girl was quiet for another minute, until, "Why?"

"Why what?" Tori shook her head and met Jade's gaze again. She suddenly felt a bit like she was drowning. "I picked up strawberries because you like them. They go well with pancakes."

"That wasn't really what I was asking- uh, you know I like strawberries?"

Jade groaned, "you talk a lot Vega. Unfortunately often in my presence. Despite my best efforts some of it... registers."

Tori grinned, and then had to stop herself from wincing at the feeling of tightness left behind by her dried tears. "You listen to what I say!"

Unexpectedly Jade smiled, "yeah Vega. Sometimes."

They lapsed into silence for a second; Tori fidgeted. Silence didn't feel right - it meant she had time to think about how weird this situation was. "Thanks for the pancakes."

Jade just shrugged, "why you crying anyway?"

Tori eyed her, but the other girl was refusing to meet her gaze, focused on meticulously cutting up her pancakes. "Why do you care?" she asked softly.

Jade didn't say anything for a good few minutes, and eventually Tori lost hope of expecting an answer. Jade confused her. Sometimes she was so blindingly arrogant, self centred and hateful -apparently for the sheer hell of it - that it was hard to imagine that such a person existed outside of her own anger. But then, times like this, times when for such brief moments Jade became _real_ – rather than just an aggravated cardboard cut-out accessory to Tori's life – it was like being held under ice cold water and deprived of oxygen. Tori struggled internally for a second with her own metaphor; what she was trying to say... what she meant was, was that Jade, sometimes, made her feel dizzy and exhilarated and excruciatingly, mortally alive. In pain, but the good the kind.

"Why do you want me to care?" Jade's whispered, belated reply was barely more than a breath but it still made Tori's head swim.

"I- I guess, because I like you. I want to be your friend... I want you to, uh, to want to be my friend."

The paler girl caught her gaze, "you want me to want you?"

Tori swallowed. When she said it like that, with eye contact, with the continued feeling of not being able to breathe properly, with Jade's glittering eyes and half curling mouth, with Jade's lips only a lean away... when she said it like that Tori felt like melting. Like saying _yes, yes, I want you to want me, the way I want you_.

Tori wasn't good at knowing what she wanted, never had been. Since arriving at Hollywood Arts the new girl had no idea of _how_ she wanted Jade (friend, lover, enemy, fantasy?) only that, impossibly, she _did_.

"Do you... uh, want me to want you to want me?"

Jade blinked, momentarily lost. "Sorry, it took a second for my goofball translator to kick in," she grinned – genuinely bright and amused. It faded pretty quickly though. She fidgeted with her folded knife and fork, and if Tori didn't know better, she'd guess that Jade looked almost nervous. "Yes. I want you to want me to want you. And... I want-" Jade cut herself off with a little self-deprecating sigh, "I'd _like_ you to _desire_me."

_Oh_, thought Tori,_ oh. _Initially she was taken aback by the unexpected confession but, when she really thought back, about all those times when Jade had stood a little too close, or had been a little too passionate about her (as oppose to her usual resigned disinterest with everyone else), or when her eyes had glinted with so much fury it seemed dangerously close to excitement... perhaps it wasn't so unexpected at all.

Jade was looking at her nervously, worrying her bottom lip. The foreign sight made Tori grin impulsively. And then realise that this was _Jade_ and such expressions after the other girl's confession was probably akin to self-flagellation. She let her smile fall, "um, do you desire me?" She fixed her gaze on her hands, feeling stricken.

"Do you want me to desire you?" Tori's head snapped up, irritated until she recognised the teasing tone in Jades voice. She met the other girl's mischievous grin with a little breathless chuckle. This is what she meant – Jade could go from mean and closed off, to light and cheery and like the only thing that mattered in Tori's world; so quickly. It gave her whiplash.

"Look Vega I need to go." Jade pulled herself off the stool and nodded at the dishes, "I cooked, you clean. Fair deal." She smiled though, ducking down to reach her bag.

"Jade?"

"Hm?"

"_Do_ you like me?"

Jade's smile was wicked, "you're alright Vega." She swung her bag onto her shoulder and began to make her way to the door. She grasped the handle and paused, "and Vega? No more crying right?"

And then she was gone, leaving Tori crumpled, tear stained, but smiling.

* * *

_Please make a review whore happy! _


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so I'm still not really sure where this is going. Both Jade and Tori always seem a bit one dimensional on the programme to me, so this fic is pretty much just an excuse to play around with the characters and satisfy my Jori desires ^_^ But they both have a lot of issues, and my plot bunnies are already hard at work planning out exactly what Jade's little secret sadness is and cajoling Tori into fixing it! But please don't tell the employment standards board, cause my mind is totally not regulation and, well, words like plot-bunny-sweat-(s)hop can do serious damage to a girls rep ^_^

Right, I'll stop rambling (I'm ridiculously pleased about my plot-bunny-sweat-hop pun though. My day = MADE!). Anyhow, enjoy (and review wonderful readers, you know you want toooooo)!

* * *

It's a couple of weeks till Tori actually encounters Jade again. Sure - they see each other at school but, as far as the Latina is concerned, that girl isn't really Jade.

Nothing actually changes, not in public anyway, although sometimes Tori feels eyes on her, even if when she turns round Jade looks completely engrossed in whatever it is she's meant to be doing. Still, Tori likes to think that Jade (the real Jade – the one that makes pancakes and admits to listening to her and makes silly puns and smiles genuinely), thinks about that Friday night just as much as Tori herself contemplates it.

But it's three weeks, and a somewhat grim, drizzly Tuesday evening till they meet again . Tori's driving home with her mother from the supermarket (and honestly is there anything more tedious than food shopping?) and as they pass a children's park, illuminated dimly by streetlights, Tori's peripheral vision catches a familiar silhouetted figure. Solitary and head hung, sitting on a swing.

It takes about three blocks and a red light of Tori thinking _it can't be her_, before she gives in and tells her Mom to stop the car.

Holly Vega is halfway through saying, "sweetheart it's raining, what on earth is so important?" when she catches Tori's own confused expression. So instead she just kisses her daughter on the forehead and tells her to call when she needs a ride home.

* * *

It takes about ten minutes of solid hiking to get back to the park and Tori is half scared that the figure will be gone. And half scared that they'll still be there.

She soaked and so tempted just to duck into the nearest coffee shop and call her mother to turn back round. Hell, rationally it's pretty unlikely that it even was Jade but... when has anything about their relationship been rational? And besides, just the possibility that the figure, with its heavy head and hunched shoulders, could be Jade... it makes her walk faster, and tilt her face towards the sky and think _yeah, is this all you've got?_

She rounds the corner and spots the girl, rocking backwards and forwards gently on the swing.

She was right to come back. It is Jade. There is no mistaking the blue hair, the familiar boots, and the apple curve of cheek. But suddenly Tori's unsure, hovering outside the gate and studying Jade's profile intensely.

Tori's no good with sad people. She never knows what to say; feels uncomfortable to the point where she laughs or does something equally as stupid like making jokes to cheer them up which often end up being offensive in some way. (There was this little incident with an old neighbour and some cat jokes, but it wasn't that big a deal. Really, the law suit was dropped and everything was _totally_ fine once she explained and apologised._ Complete _coincidence that they moved to the other side of town a couple weeks later). But... she remembers Jade's unreadable gaze on her as they ate pancakes and thinks that she owes the other girl enough to at least try. And besides, just standing watching her friend break apart is doing strange things to her insides – and somehow Tori thinks that walking away so she doesn't have to look anymore, well, that isn't going to stop the feeling.

So she pushes open the gate. It squeaks unnecessarily loud and Jade's head snaps round, startled. Even from a couple of meters away Tori can see that she's been crying. Her eyes are red and puffy, their usual coat of makeup is missing. There's a crumpled, wet tissue in the hand that isn't gripping the swing chain and her hair is piled up into a messy, wind-beaten knot at the top of her head. Tori's heart melts a little.

She moves towards the swing, aware of Jade's gaze, intense even through watery eyes, fixed upon her. "Hi," she says softly. She points at the vacant swing, "is this seat taken? Or is it my lucky day?"

It takes a couple of beats for Jade to make any reaction to her (what can only be loosely defined as a) pun, which is about the same amount of time it takes for Tori to work herself into an internal frenzy over her lack of sensitivity. Eventually though Jade smiles – somewhat crookedly and broken – but it's a smile and Tori will take what she can get.

The swing gives a little groan when she sets her weight on it. "I don't have any pancakes."

Jade looks at her.

"So I can't cheer you up by feeding you comfort food."

"Actually," Jade mutters, and is suddenly digging around in her overly large sweater, "I brought my own." She retrieves a half eaten, red candy bar and holds it out towards the darker girl.

Tori peers at it, "what? Car-a-mac?"

Jade is smiling, and when Tori looks up at her from the proffered bar, it catches unawares and forces a little explosive breath out of her. She needs to warn her when she does that. Otherwise she's going to end up hyperventilating... or something.

"It's a British candy bar. Taste like white chocolate falling in love with caramel." And Jade's gaze becomes, somehow, even more complex, like she's daring Tori to work out if she's the chocolate or caramel. "Try it."

Tori takes a piece and pops it onto her tongue. The other girl leans forwards till their noses almost brush and murmurs, "let it melt."

Tori's pretty sure if Jade keeps _this_ up, she'll melt before the candy. But to her surprise the chocolate is already melting and filling her mouth with sweet caramel-y essence and she's humming in appreciation without even realising. Jade leans back looking triumphant. The look fades quickly back into veiled sadness though and the tanned girl's smile drops. Tori wonders when her happiness began depending on Jade's own mood.

"Jade... what, what's wrong?"

The pale girl shrugs, eyes fixed on nothing behind Tori's shoulder with such intensity that the other girl wants to turn and check no one's there. "Nothing serious. Just. I..." Jade sighs, "look Tori even if I tell you, you can't help. So what's the point in telling you?"

The singer ponders the question for a second, surprising herself with the answer that instantly filled her, pushing to the front of her mind. "Because sometimes, even if you think no one can help, they can. Even if it's just by listening. You're not alone, I know it is clichéd, but you aren't... I want to know you Jade. I want, uh, well, not to be your friend cause' I think... I want more than that, but I want to be there for you. And to help you. And uh, stuff..."

Jade quirked a suggestive eyebrow. "And stuff...?"

"N-not like that! I meant-"

"You don't want my _stuff_?" If Tori had been less flustered she would have taken time to admire how quickly Jade had snapped from chronic sadness to impishness. As it was, she was a bit preoccupied with furiously back peddling, not catching the mockery in the other girls smirk.

"-help you non sexually! I mean not that I wouldn't want to help you sexually, just, I meant help you not to be sad. And I'm not expecting stuff, uh sexual stuff, from you. Not-not that I, uh, I... I'd love your sexual stuff! I.. you're laughing at me. Why are you-" Tori clicked her mouth shut and realised (despite the blow of sudden light headedness, almost certainly caused by the waves of blood rising to her cheeks, leaving more important parts like _her_ _brain_ deprived) that she was being teased. She huffed.

Jade was still, her cheek pressed against the swing's chain, looking at Tori with bright eyes. She hummed softly and Tori watch as the humour in her face fell away, leaving... well, not happiness exactly, contentment perhaps. Whatever it was, it made her expression smooth and relaxed, lips curling upwards threatening to fall back into a smile; eyes crinkling at the corners and glowing green against the grey of the day.

"Thanks Tori," she half whispered, voice almost lost in the wind.

"For what?" The other girl murmured back, leaning automatically inwards.

"Cheering me up. You're goofiness doesn't leave any space for my sadness."

Tori blinked at her, turning Jade's last sentence around in her head. It took her by surprise sometimes the clarity with which Jade could say something that really shouldn't make any sense at all, but somehow managed to pin down those fluttery little meanings that were so good at evading Tori's own mind. Tori could understand the things she_ felt_, but translating those into something coherent... whereas Jade, not only could she decode the feelings into words, but she did it so beautifully that the words could translate back into feelings as soon as the other person had caught hold of them.

But Tori, being Tori, wasn't quite sure how to say all of that so she just settled for leaning forward ever so slightly more to brush their lips together. She hovered for a second and felt Jade jerk towards her, one hand on her own suddenly tugging her back to the other girl's lips.

They kissed softly for a second, languidly, almost platonically with only the liquid fire inside Tori's stomach as any indication of its true significance. "Jade?" Tori murmured against her lips.

"Yes, Vega?"

"My goofiness will always be around to cheer you up."


End file.
